LITMIR.BIZ

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better, and she adored him. I’ve got photos of them together with his arm round her in the compound. His commanding officer would have flayed the skin off him if he’d known, especially as Joe was the officer in charge of the little outpost, but he couldn’t have done anything else. He broke all the rules for her, and nobody ever said a word.’

      ‘And you brought her home for him.’

      She tried to smile. ‘I had to. I owed it to her, and anyway, he’d already arranged it. There’s a charity run by an ex-serviceman to help soldiers bring home the dogs that they’ve adopted over there, and it was all set up, but when Joe died the arrangements ground to a halt. Then a year later, just before I went out to Afghanistan, someone from the charity contacted me and said the dog was still hanging around the compound and did I still want to go ahead.’

      ‘And of course you did.’ He smiled at her, his eyes creasing with a gentle understanding that brought a lump to her throat. She swallowed.

      ‘Yeah. Well. Anyway, they were so helpful. The money wasn’t the issue because Joe had already paid them, it was the red tape, and they knew just how to cut through it, and she was flown home a month later, just after I left for Afghanistan. She was waiting for me in the quarantine kennels when I got home at the end of December, and she’s been with me ever since, but it hasn’t been easy.’

      ‘No, I’m sure it hasn’t. Poor Saffy,’ he said, his hand gentle on her side, and Connie reached out and put her hand over his, stilling it.

      ‘James, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just—it was the last piece of the puzzle, really, the last thing we’d planned apart from bringing Saffy home. We’d talked about it for so long, and he was so excited about the idea that maybe at last we could have a baby. He didn’t know what you’d say, which way you’d go, but he was hoping he could talk you into it.’

      And maybe he could have done, she thought, if James had meant what he’d said about considering it. But now, because Joe was dead, James had flatly refused to help her because she’d be alone and that was different, apparently.

      ‘You know,’ she said softly, going on because she couldn’t just give up on this at the first hurdle, ‘if you’d said yes to him and then he’d been killed in some accident, for instance, I would still have had to bring the baby up alone. What would you have done then, if I’d already had a child?’

      ‘I would have looked after you both,’ he said instantly, ‘but you haven’t had a child, and Joe’s gone, and I don’t want that responsibility.’

      ‘There is no responsibility.’

      He stared at her. ‘Of course there is, Connie. I can’t just give you a child and let you walk off into the sunset with it and forget about it. Get real. This is my flesh and blood you’re talking about. My child. I could never forget my child.’

       Ever …

      ‘But you would have done it for us?’

      He shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not, but Joe’s not here any more, and a stable, happily married couple who desperately want a baby isn’t the same as a grieving widow clinging to the remnants of a dream.’

      ‘But that’s not what I’m doing, not what this is about.’

      ‘Are you sure? Have you really analysed your motives, Connie? I don’t think so. And what if you meet someone?’ he asked her, that nagging fear suddenly rising again unbidden and sickening him. ‘What if, a couple of years down the line, another man comes into your life? What then? Would you expect me to sit back and watch a total stranger bringing up my child, with no say in how they do it?’

      She shook her head vehemently. ‘That won’t happen—and anyway, I’m getting older. I’m thirty-six now. Time’s ebbing away. I don’t know if I’ll ever be truly over Joe, and by the time I am, and I’ve met someone and trust him enough to fall in love, it’ll be too late for me and I really, really want this. It’s now or never, James.’

      It was. He could see that, knew that her fertility was declining with every year that passed, but that wasn’t his problem. Nothing about this was his problem. Until she spoke again.

      ‘I don’t want to put pressure on you, and I respect your decision. I just—I would much rather it was someone Joe had loved and respected, someone I loved and respected, than an anonymous donor.’

      ‘Anonymous donor?’ he said, his voice sounding rough and gritty to his ears.

      ‘Well, what else? If it can’t be you, I don’t know who else it would be. There’s nobody else I could ask, but if I go for a donor how do I know what they’re like? How do I know if they’ve got a sense of humour, or any brains or integrity—I might as well go and pull someone in a nightclub and have a random—’

      ‘Connie, for God’s sake!’

      She gave a wry, twisted little smile.

      ‘Don’t worry, James. It’s OK. I’m not that crazy. I won’t do anything stupid.’

      ‘Good,’ he said tautly. ‘And for the record, I don’t like emotional blackmail.’

      ‘It wasn’t!’ she protested, her eyes filling with tears.

      ‘Really, James, it wasn’t, I wouldn’t do that to you. I wasn’t serious. I’m really not that nuts.’

      He wasn’t sure. Not nuts, maybe, but—desperate?

       ‘When it happens—promise me you’ll take care of her.’

       ‘Of course I will, you daft bastard. It won’t happen. It’s your last tour. You’ll be fine.’

      But he hadn’t been fine, and now Connie was here, making hideous jokes about doing something utterly repugnant, and he felt the weight of responsibility crush him.

      ‘Promise me you won’t do anything stupid,’ he said gruffly.

      ‘I won’t.’

      ‘Nothing. Don’t do anything. Not yet.’

      She tilted her head and searched his eyes, her brows pleating together thoughtfully. ‘Not yet?’

       Not ever, because I can’t bear the thought of you giving your body to a total stranger in some random, drunken encounter, and because if anybody’s going to give you a baby, it’s me—

      The thought shocked him rigid. He jack-knifed to his feet and strode back to the house, his heart pounding, and after a few moments he heard the crunch of gravel behind him on the path.

      Saffy was already there at his side, glued to his leg, and as he walked into the kitchen and stared at the wreckage of his shopping bags, she wagged her tail sheepishly, guilt written all over her.

      A shadow fell across the room.

      ‘Ah. Sorry. I was coming to tell you—she stole the steak.’

      He gave a soft, slightly unsteady laugh and shook his head. ‘Oh, Saffy. You are such a bad dog,’ he murmured, with so much affection in his voice it brought a lump to her throat. He seemed to be doing that a lot today.

      ‘She was starving when Joe found her. She steals because it’s all she knows, the only way she could survive. And it really is her only vice. I’ll replace the steak—’

      ‘To hell with the steak,’ he said gruffly. ‘She’s welcome to it. We’ll just have to go to the pub tonight.’

      Better that way than sitting alone together in his house trying to have a civilised conversation over dinner and picking their way through this minefield. Perhaps Saffy had inadvertently done them both a favour.

      ‘Well, I could have handled that better, couldn’t I, Saff?’

      Saffy just wagged her tail lazily and stretched. James had gone shopping

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